During overtime of Friday’s Canes-Ducks game, Ducks star Corey Perry broke his stick. On his way to the bench, the former Hart Trophy winner must have thought getting a new stick was too much work. Instead, he plucked a twig out of Semin’s hands as the ex-Cap sat on the boards waiting for a shift change.

From 2006 through 2012, Alex Semin was an inscrutable, playful presence on the Washington Capitals roster. Now that he’s with Carolina Hurricanes, Lesser Sasha doesn’t seem to have changed much. Friend-of-the-blog and Canes photographer extraordinaire Jamie Kellner shared a little video that reminds us of all the good times.

It has been a long, five days since the last Washington Capitals game. The world just feels different now, ya know? The temperature dropped 40 degrees for one thing. Alex Ovechkin surrendered the scoring lead to a tween for another. No matter: the Carolina Hurricanes came to town and we finally got our hockey back. If you were looking for an even-strength exhibition, whoops.

Jason Chimera scored– doesn’t matter how; he just did. Elias Lindholm scored the first goal of his career in the second, a weird one that bounced off of John Carlson’s skate.

Ugh, I hate weird goals.

Alex Ovechkin scored a weird goal by deflecting Steve Oleksy’s shot, introducing all kinds of brownian motion that Khudobin couldn’t savvy. Soon after that, Alex Semin tied the game by converting a 5-on-3 pretty much instantly.

The Capitals defense reasserted its crumminess in the third, as John Erskine (6’4″, 220 lbs.) was unable to box out Nathan Gerbe (basically Rudy from the movie Rudy).

The Washington Capitals will play their Metropolitan Division neighbors, the Carolina Hurricanes, five times this season. That means five wacky nights of Alex Semin vs Alex Ovechkin. Greater Sasha and Sasha Minor bashing skulls and chewing bubble gum times five! What will happen? Will Semin take a restraining penalty? Will he smoke cigarettes outside the team bus? Will it be awko taco between Semin and Grabo? Will Semin get sassed by Troy Brouwer? Let’s hope for yesses across the board.

Game one is coming up soon, and the rest are evenly spaced out through the season:

Troy Brouwer’s return to the score sheet for the first time since March 30th came in three parts. First was the power play goal, a zippy shot from the slot set up by Mike Ribeiro. Then came the empty-netter, in spite of Alex Semin’s cross-check, sealing the deal with only seconds to spare. And finally came the trash talk: Troy Brouwer letting ex-teammate and international man of mystery Alex Semin know what he thought of — well something, I guess. Lipreading is not our bag. If lipreading is your bag, give it a try in the comments below.

Alex Semin has signed a highly lucrative contract with the Carolina Hurricanes for 7 million dollars a season over the next 5 years. The contract is a serious payday for a player whose skill has distinguished him in recent years.

Semin has 8 goals and 22 assists this season.

The Carolina Hurricanes have signed a highly ludicrous contract with Alex Semin for 7 million dollars a season over the next 5 years. The contact is a serious overpayment for player whose skill will be declining distinctly in those years.

Mark Gandler is always good for a pot stirring. As an agent for Alex Semin, Gandler has rarely hesitated to drop a bombastic statement about his client or his critics. With Semin moved to the Carolina Hurricanes, playing pretty well, and pulling in a cool prorated $7 million for 48 games of work, Gandler must have figured it was his time to speak. In an interview with Sovetsky Sport’s Pavel Lysenkov, Gandler talks about how great Semin is doing in Raleigh, how underappreciated he was in DC, and why the Washington Capitals are so bad this year.